31 August 2018
Friday of the Twenty-First Week in Ordinary Time
We not only must stay awake and be watchful for an unexpected encounter with our Master, but also with the One with whom we hope to spend eternity: the One Who, by taking on a human nature, has essentially “wed” Himself to us forever. The Bridegroom of the Church: Jesus.
The parable Jesus tells us today seems cruel: why cannot the late-coming virgins be granted entrance? Quite simply put: only those who enter with the Bridegroom are permitted. We hear an echo of Jesus’ words from John’s Gospel: “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (14:6). Those virgins who were prepared for a long wait, who kept their lanterns lit, who stayed awake, entered the house with the Bridegroom and enjoyed the wedding celebration, but those who were hoping he would arrive on their terms, who brought only their lamps but no extra oil, were sorely disappointed.
We do not know when Jesus will return to Earth and inaugurate the last phase of His salvific plan. We do not know the day nor hour of our death, our own personal encounter with the Bridegroom: how do we prepare for a meeting that is not only unscheduled, but impossible to schedule? We pray and come to know Him and be known by Him, so that when the Day comes, He will not turn us away, saying, “Amen, I say to you, I do not know you.” We do our best to live free of sin, going to the merchant—the Church—for the Sacrament of Penance to refill our lamps when we put them out, when we extinguish the flame of faith we received at our baptism. We attend the weekly (or even daily!) wedding feast of the Lamb—the Mass—and enjoy this foretaste of the wedding feast to come. Receive Him worthily, with a ready heart, that as you have received Him into your whole being in the Eucharist, He might one day receive you into His eternal life.
The Bridegroom, as He has expressed clearly in our Gospels of late, does not want to catch us unawares: He wants us to be ready. Thus He has given us everything we need to prepare, to stay awake, to be ready for His coming so that even should we miss that midnight cry we will be able to follow Him into His Father’s House, and dwell there with Him forever.